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The CHIRP Blog
CHIRP Radio writesIn Rotation: Retirement Party
Runaway Dog, the new album from Chicago band Retirement Party, is out on Counter Intuative Records and is in rotation on 107.1 FM CHIRP Radio!
Beatnik writesThe Songs That Get You Through: “Where The Streets Have No Name” by U2
These are obviously strange times we are living in, so we asked some of our CHIRP volunteers to tell us about a particular song they like to listen to when things are tough. We're calling it, "The Songs That Get You Through."
Today, we hear from CHIRP partnerships coordinator Bradley Morgan:
I am a dreamer, so I have pretty big dreams about the world and my place in it. I am also an Irish citizen, a heritage with no shortage of big dreamers. So I feel a special kinship with Bono. He wrote “Where the Streets Have No Name” after visiting Ethiopia and it is there he had an epiphany about classism in the Western world. This idea that where you live determines your worth and whether you live or die. In America, block by block, the marginalized are relegated to their corners and the privileged to their own. That is an unjust way to live. "Where The Streets Have No Name" represents an idealized world, one to strive for where class lines cannot be drawn on a map. A world that guarantees equal access to food, housing security, and the right to not be murdered by police. That is the world I want to live in and am striving for. COVID-19 has further highlighted the vast inequities that exist in America. But it also has emboldened the dreamers to step up and tear down the invisible walls that divide us and make the rich richer while the poor get poorer.
“Where The Streets Have No Name” gets me through difficult times because it reinforces the responsibility I have to help make this world more just for all.
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesThe History of Chicago Blues (1972)
CHIRP Radio's Citations presents interesting and informative content about Chicago or music (or both) from around the Web.
Blues is a music with a rich cultural history that tells stories of change, migration, suffering, and hope. To not know something about the Blues is to miss a very important part of American music.
This film, produced and directed by Harley Cokliss in 1972 for Irit Film Productions, looks at the Chicago Blues scene in the late '60s and early '70s, when tentions were still running high because of events like the Vietnam War and the chaotic and violent Democratic Party National Convention Chicago hosted. The document features artists such as Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters and Junior Wells.
CHIRP Radio writesIn Rotation: Outronaut
Kill the Light, the new self-released album from Chicago band Outronaut, is in rotation on CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM Chicago!
Beatnik writesThe Songs That Get You Through: “Windfall” by Son Volt
These are obviously strange times we are living in, so we asked some of our CHIRP volunteers to tell us about a particular song they like to listen to when things are tough. We're calling it, "The Songs That Get You Through."
DJ K-Tel, who you can hear Sundays from 12-2pm, shared this story:
“Windfall” by Son Volt always makes me happy—especially when I remember it as the soundtrack to my epic 1997 three-week, cross-country road trip with two best friends. When Jay Farrar croons, “Both feet on the floor, two hands on the wheel / May the wind take your troubles away,” there’s nothing else to do but scream, “Hell, yeah!” while careening through the back country roads of Wyoming.
The entire Trace album was on heavy rotation, along with Grant Lee Buffalo, Uncle Tupelo, Swervedriver (and Third Eye Blind—hey, it was 1997, and “Semi-Charmed Life” was everywhere!). This was long before mobile phones, way before GPS. Armed only with a trusty Rand McNally atlas and a rough idea of where we wanted to go—west!—we were young and wide-eyed and winging it, crashing at cheap roadside motels and sleeping on floors—and experiencing 18 states and parts of Canada. When this pandemic is over, I’m seriously considering doing it all over again. With the same soundtrack.
